


the growth of something final

by Molnija



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nobody here has any idea what they're doing, Pining, TRYING YOUR BEST, but they will! eventually, i'd say getting together but they're not actually getting together yet, rated t for consistency's sake and nothing else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-06 09:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16385324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molnija/pseuds/Molnija
Summary: Out of all the strange things happening in Tsutomu’s life recently, he hadn’t thought that his crush’s failed attempts at magic would be the least stressful.In which Hinata is just trying to learn how to cast a spell, Goshiki is learning more about his powers than he ever asked for, and an ideal conclusion may be reached with less-than-ideal methods.





	the growth of something final

**Author's Note:**

> it's been two years and I still can't title. or get people properly together within 8k words
> 
> here it is, part 3 of the Annual Halloween Rarepair Oneshots, featuring Hinagoshi as I promised last year! if you didn't read the [other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8373604) [two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12578484), they're in no way required, but if you're in the Halloween spirit and like this verse, maybe check 'em out, haha.
> 
> this is a lot more like the first one than the second one, mainly featuring Hinagoshi's misadventures with magic and Goshiki's huge-ass crush on Hinata somebody please help this boy. if you came for drama and pain, you will be sorely disappointed, but if you're just here for light-hearted vaguely Halloween-y fun, this may be the place for you! or maybe not. idk your tastes
> 
> Hinagoshi is a good, pure ship that deserves lots of love but by god I'm not used to writing these types of characters. why do I always end up writing the introspective ones, it means I have no idea what I'm doing for the ones who actually voice what they think instead of just keeping it all inside and picking and choosing--
> 
> (if there are any temporal mistakes please point them out, I've been writing three things simultaneously and rapidfire switching between past & present tense has done things to my brain)

Out of all the strange things happening in Tsutomu’s life recently, he hadn’t thought that his crush’s failed attempts at magic would be the least stressful.

He always kind of expected Hinata to come out with another life-changing fact, like  _I’m actually 200 years old_  or  _my mother was the most powerful witch alive_ , but he never said anything like that, so Tsutomu was pretty sure by now that the tingle he felt in his heart whenever he smiled was actually his fault and not Hinata’s.

Okay, it was kind of Hinata’s fault anyway, because how dare he? Hinata was the kind of person that sunflowers turned toward. Like, literally, he’d seen that happen when they were in full bloom.

Tsutomu wasn’t a sunflower, though, he was just your ordinary everyday high school second year, but he still turned toward Hinata all the time, like he couldn’t look away.

Okay, right now, maybe that was because he had ashes all over his face from a fire spell that had poofed up right in front of him, but that wasn’t the point.

Hinata was sitting on the ground on their usual spot under the oak in the centre of the park, waving his hands around to get rid of the smoke, and laughed, a sound that Tsutomu had gotten pretty used to recently (but also  _not_  because how did you get used to  _this_?). “Aw, man, that didn’t work out. Let’s try the next one!”

Tsutomu wasn’t sure what it was he was trying to do, all he knew was that he wasn’t really good at it. Of course, because Hinata was human, and what did humans know about magic? “Don’t you think you’ve had enough for the day? You’ll burn down the park.”

There was a certain glimmer in Hinata’s eyes as if they were trying to actively argue against that  _human_  statement he’d just made, or maybe he was just imagining that. “That’d be cool! It’d mean it worked!”

“Oh … You have a point,” he had to admit. “But just getting the spell to work doesn’t mean you’re doing it right. There’s a lot more to that!”

Hinata jumped up, only to immediately lean down again, and suddenly his face was awfully close to Tsutomu’s and he thought that the reason it was suddenly hard to breathe must have been the aftereffects of the failed spell, even though the ash had already evaporated. “Really? Can you show me? I mean, you’re a super cool fairy, right?”

A quarter fairy, he might as well be human, really, but he’d go through hell before admitting that. He liked to think that his heritage had given him not just height, but magical affinity too. Truth be told, he’d never really  _tried_  to dabble in magic before he’d met Hinata, but he’d never tried volleyball before fourth grade either – turned out he was a natural. This couldn’t be that different. Plus, anything cool he’d pull off would earn him another earnest compliment from Hinata, and that had to be the biggest motivation in the world.

“Y-yes, sure!” he stammered out, more because Hinata was still  _really close_  than because he wasn’t confident in the abilities he surely had, and he stood up, took a deep breath—

Wait, what was it they were doing again?

He cleared his throat and picked up a floppy orange leaf from the ground. Something with fire … Something with fire …

Fire wasn’t exactly what fairies were known for (he thought – truth be told, he’d never looked into it much, he just liked to brag about his grandmother being fae), but he had more magic in him than a human, that was for sure. If he could make this leaf go up in flames …

How did you do that?

Hinata had used a spell. Tsutomu, of course, did not remember that spell, because why would he, he’d never bothered to memorise it. Damn it, maybe he should have – what if Hinata started thinking he was a hoax?

He could just try and stare at it really hard.

Just … Stare at the leaf … Gently flowing in the light autumn breeze … Stare a hole in it. Think about Hinata, Hinata who was the closest thing to fire he knew; seeing him on the court with all eyes turned to him in a way that made Tsutomu jealous and something else. The way he smiled, like the sun, sometimes it was hard to look at him directly. How every time he sent him a text asking him to go somewhere with him it was like he set his cheeks on fire.

“Woah,” he heard him whisper, and Tsutomu hadn’t even realised that Hinata had stood up to stand next to him—

Or that the leaf had turned green and grown to about three times its original size.

“That’s so cool! Goshiki-kun, you’re so  _cool_!”

He snapped back to reality so hard he dropped the leaf and it turned back to how it had been as soon as his skin wasn’t touching it anymore.

Tsutomu wanted to say something – something like ‘ha, this was nothing’, or ‘that’s just what fairies do’ – but no words came out. He’d have thought he’d be used to getting praised at this point but maybe Shiratorizawa really had destroyed his ability to take compliments. Or maybe it was just because it was Hinata.

“Can you teach me how to do that? If I show that to Kageyama, he’ll be so jealous!” He took a step back and pushed his hair down with his hands, scowling as he imitated his setter. “He’ll say,  _this won’t help you become a better spiker_ , but he’ll secretly be wishing he could do that too. Besides …” Hinata took his hands away and his air popped up again like it was feathering somehow. That had to be magic too, right? “You’re a really great spiker, and maybe that has something to do with it!”

Tsutomu was pretty sure he was actually on fire at this point. It looked like the earlier spell had worked after all. Why had he ever befriended this person? He’d always assumed he only liked girls, and then Hinata had started to smile at him  _like that_  and that had been that. He had enough to do with Shirabu being captain now, he didn’t need this, he didn’t need … This much sunshine in his life.

 _Human_ , his mind repeated involuntarily.  _Hinata is human._

But if Hinata was human, that meant that everything else wasn’t his fault, which in return meant that Tsutomu was done for.

 

* * *

 

“I swear, it was like …” Shouyou stared at the leaf with a frown so deep if Tsukishima had been here he’d have told him that it’d stay like this forever, but nothing about it changed. “Like,  _swoosh_ , it just grew and turned really green and pretty.”

As much as he’d practiced with Goshiki last weekend in the park, he just didn’t get it right. Just like Goshiki, actually. It seemed to have been some one-time-thing, but Shouyou wanted to believe that it only meant he could do it again if he tried. He had to admit that he wasn’t as good at magic as a fairy, but he at least wanted to  _see_  it happen again. And take a video of it, because otherwise nobody was going to believe him.

Maybe it was the leaves’ fault. The leaves at the park were just  _different_  than the ones on the schoolyard of Karasuno High School, and the one that had turned back into green must have been a special case even in that special case. They just had to find the right leaf. Again.

“That guy from Shiratorizawa’s got fairy blood though, right?” Tanaka asked, still leaning against the school wall with his hands in his pockets. Shouyou didn’t know if he wasn’t moving because he thought he looked cool or because he was just really cold and didn’t want to show – he wasn’t wearing a jacket or a scarf or anything, even in the cold October weather.

“He does! It’s so cool. He doesn’t look any different from humans …” He stopped mid-sentence to repeat those words in his head – something about them sounded wrong. “I mean, he looks a bit different. From most people. But I don’t know if that’s because he’s a fairy or because he’s such a good volleyball player.”

Goshiki was tall, after all – a fact Shouyou still found enviable, but lately he’d been thinking that being short came with its own perks too; Hoshiumi had been right when he’d said that being underestimated was kind of fun – and he was muscular, though not as much as someone like Tanaka. That just came with being the ace, he guessed. Maybe he should ask him for his workout schedule.

But that wasn’t why, he thought. There was something else about him. A fairy aura that made him stand out? Were those a thing? Or did he just admire him and that was why he cared so much? Maybe it was both.

“So, like Kageyama, but with a bowl cut?” Tanaka said and laughed out loud. “Don’t tell Kageyama that, he’s gonna be pissed.”

Like Kageyama? Shouyou shook his head almost automatically. “No, no, that’s not right. Kageyama is different because he’s super good and he knows it. I guess Goshiki does too though … But he’s not as rude.”

“I still can’t believe the two of you are actually friends.” Tanaka was still not moving from his position and slowly but surely Shouyou was starting to fear he was frozen in place.

“Why would we not be? He’s pretty nice, we’re both second years, and we’ve met a bunch because of training camps and stuff. Plus we get to practice volleyball and magic together and he’s good at the subjects in school I’m bad at so he can teach me.”

“Who can?” someone chimed in from the side and when he turned his head, he saw Nishinoya coming toward them, wearing a t-shirt but not looking even a little bit cold.

“Goshiki!”

“Who?”

Tanaka was visibly shivering now, though his voice sounded the same still. “Man, that’s rude, Noya. We’re talking about Hinata’s friend from Shiratorizawa.”

“Shouyou has friends at Shiratorizawa?” Nishinoya froze, then shook his head and a grin appeared on his face. “Nevermind, Shouyou has friends everywhere. Think you can get us a practice match?”

“I can try!” It was a good idea, actually. They  _had_  beaten them last year, true, but they were still some of the best opponents around. Surely Goshiki wouldn’t mind him bringing it up next time they met.

“Nice, nice!” Nishinoya slapped him on the back so hard he stumbled forward with a startled sound. “We can always count on you! Why were you talking about that friend though?”

The conversation came back to magic then, and Nishinoya looked much more into it than Tanaka had, although that was probably just because the latter doubled as an icicle at this point. Why he couldn’t just throw on a jacket Shouyou would never understand, but he supposed he’d suffer through the same thing if Kageyama challenged him on it.

Just before their break ended, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Goshiki asking him to meet up tomorrow after school, mainly so he wouldn’t forget to do it tomorrow. And he did want to go to the library and check out some books on magic …

If Goshiki had made something amazing like that leaf growing happen, then he couldn’t afford to fall behind. There had to be  _something_  he could do.

 

* * *

 

Tsutomu had always kind of assumed that the scariest part of Shiratorizawa’s boys’ volleyball team had been Ushijima, or maybe Washijou. He had been wrong. The scariest part of Shiratorizawa’s boys’ volleyball team was Shirabu on a bad day.

After his third missed spike of the day (something that Tsutomu insisted hadn’t been his fault, even though he wasn’t sure, it might have been, it might have not, but he was the ace and the ace didn’t miss any spikes unless the setter messed up) coach Saitou called a short break. When Tsutomu headed for the benches to grab a towel and a sports drink, he swore he could hear Shirabu mutter “god, it’s like I’m playing with fucking amateurs” under his breath as he passed him and decided not to talk to him at all today unless he absolutely had to. The glares that were being sent his way all day since morning practice were already terrifying enough.

(Another misconception he’d had before last year’s third years had graduated: Shirabu was a somewhat stingy, but mostly polite person who could be decent enough company. Turned out that that was only true if you were a senpai and/or authority figure, and now that he was a third year, he was getting increasingly blunt with telling you how much you sucked at your job,  _especially_  when he was in a bad mood, which was often.)

“Sorry for him,” someone said and when Tsutomu looked up, Kawanishi was pointing at Shirabu on the other side of the gym half-heartedly. “He’s just getting anxious because Spring Tournament prelims are coming up. Don’t tell him I said that.”

The vice-captain, at least, was a person Tsutomu liked quite a bit. Maybe it was the familiarity – Kawanishi was half-fae, so he liked to think they were connected in some way – or maybe it was just because he was usually pretty down-to-earth and relaxed. Tsutomu had been getting along with the new first years, too, but even though it had been a bit tense sometimes, he found he kind of missed last year’s team.

“He’s got nothing to be anxious about, we’re not gonna lose,” he said and meant it. Yeah, Karasuno had beaten them last year, but they had pretty much an all-new team and he was trying his best to make up for the lack of Ushijima as their cannon. Even though he probably wouldn’t say so, he knew that Kawanishi felt the same way about Tendou.

The small smile he got from his senpai made him feel a bit accomplished. There’d been a weird atmosphere in the gym recently, so people getting along helped ease that a bit. “You’re right. We’ve got a strong team and the determination for it. Just because Karasuno beat us once doesn’t mean we can’t go to nationals again.”

“Right, right! Even though Karasuno has Hinata.” Speaking of whom, he’d gotten that message earlier about meeting up tomorrow that was already doing all sorts of things to his heart rate. He  _knew_  their meet-ups weren’t dates, but they were still on their own … In places like parks and cafés … Just the two of them …

“We’re gonna shut down Hinata too,” Kawanishi said, not mentioning the blush that was certainly on Tsutomu’s cheeks right now judging by the way his face was heating up.

Damn it, he was supposed to focus on volleyball! If he got distracted now, Shirabu would be even more pissed off.

“Break’s over,” coach Washijou shouted. He hadn’t even been here until just now, but it wasn’t unusual that the first thing he’d do upon entering the gym was telling them they weren’t working hard enough, so Tsutomu wasn’t surprised.

At least with him around, it was very difficult to not focus on volleyball. He was very good at scaring everyone into concentrating.

Even so, Tsutomu couldn’t shake the thoughts of Hinata in the back of his mind for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

This book that Sugawara had recommended to him over text didn’t really look like a magic book at all. As Shouyou was flipping through the pages, he couldn’t help but think that this was a lot less …  _Old_  than expected. It reminded him more of those new books they’d recently gotten for math class, just less intimidating – he’d take spells over polynomial division any day.

Goshiki wasn’t here yet, so he was sitting alone by the fountain in the park they’d picked out as their meeting point today. He’d wanted to go somewhere with water, because setting things on fire hadn’t worked out that well last time, so maybe he was better with that. This book had a bunch of spells that could turn water into a different colour or drench someone or something without ever actually throwing water at them (which he’d definitely use on Tsukishima once he learned it), so it should be alright. That was what Sugawara had said at least.

On the page he was currently on there was a recipe for a potion that was supposed to give you really good self-confidence. Maybe he could give that to some of the new first years, even though they’d been here for a while, a few of them still always looked like they were afraid of actually playing volleyball. Then again, Yamaguchi was already helping them get over that, so they probably didn’t need a potion after all.

“Hinata!” he heard a familiar voice call out to him and he grinned at Goshiki when he saw him running toward him. “Sorry I’m late, something happened with the trains …”

“No problem! I was just looking through this book Suga-san said was good.” He held the book up and waved it at him until Goshiki took it and inspected it with a sceptical look on his face.

“This doesn’t look like a proper spell book. Aren’t they supposed to be really old and confusing?”

“I  _know_ , right? But Suga-san told me that the spells in were written by a wizard, so they should work.” In his research about magic he’d recently found out that if you didn’t have any magical ability, you couldn’t just write up your own spells, you had to use ones from people who actually knew what they were doing. Sugawara was a witch himself and had shown him a few tricks last year before he’d graduated, so Shouyou knew that he wasn’t a phony.

With an actual spell book written by an actual wizard and recommended by an actual witch, this had to work out. Any person could use magic this way, or so he’d heard.

Goshiki handed him the book back but made no signs of wanting to sit down next to him, so Shouyou stood up instead. “So, what do you wanna do? Or should I try out something first to make sure it’s the real deal?”

“Wouldn’t that be the other way around?” Shouyou said, but decided not to question it. Goshiki was the one who wasn’t human and the one who’d actually worked magic before, so he was more trustworthy than him in this regard. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking, because fire didn’t work out, I wanted to try a water spell. Maybe freeze it!”

“Freezing a public fountain?” Goshiki raised an eyebrow, but cleared his throat not a second after and put his hands on his hips, standing a bit taller. “Well, I’m sure it’s fine if I’m here. And we can un-freeze it right after.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” Nothing could go wrong if Goshiki was here, after all. Even if Shouyou messed up, he could trust his friend to fix it – he was amazing like that, as he’d shown.

“So, uh …”

They both stared at the fountain for a solid half minute until Goshiki said, “What do we do?”

“Right, there’s this spell in the book—” He flipped through the pages trying to find it again – Sugawara had told him to bookmark what he wanted to use, but he hadn’t done it because he’d wanted to use everything.

After a moment of looking he finally landed on the page he’d been looking for, and he held up the book and pointed at the exact spell he wanted to use so Goshiki could see. “This one! It’s supposed to be really easy, you just focus and then you say the words and if you do it right it should work out.”

Goshiki squinted at the letters, clearly not convinced. “What language is that, French? Do you even know how to pronounce that?”

“Uh …” He didn’t. He was also pretty sure it wasn’t French, but he didn’t know which one it actually was, so Goshiki might even be right. In the end, it didn’t matter. “I’ll wing it!”

Goshiki looked at him as if he wanted to protest, but a second later his expression turned more determined and he gave him a thumbs-up. “Alright, go ahead. I’ll be on standby if something happens.”

“Alright! I’m counting on you!” Saying that to him felt a little bit weird – normally it was something he’d tell his teammates, and Goshiki was anything but. Or … Well, they’d been working on this magic stuff a lot together, so maybe he wasn’t that different after all, even if they were rivals on court. Just ‘friends’ didn’t seem to cut it sometimes.

It was a kind of reassuring thought, and with that and a smile he turned to the fountain.

There weren’t many people around and none of them nearby, so he could do whatever he wanted without anyone getting hurt or caught off guard. There was nothing holding him back, he just needed … To focus …

Truth be told, Shouyou had never figured out exactly what that meant. Did you just stare at the thing really hard? But he had to read too, so he should probably stare at the book instead, and … Not think about anything else? Right. Easy. On paper.

He cleared his throat and started to read the passage out loud. “ _Wie das Was…Wasser so klar …_   _M…_  Wait, how do you pronounce that letter? That o with the dots on it.”

“Maybe a longer o? You know, like an ooooh,” Goshiki said, not sounding all that convincing.

“Alright, uh …  _Mögest auch du scheinen im Licht der Sonn…_ ” Why was that word so long? Who’d allowed that? “ _Sonnenstrahl…len?_ ”

Geez, why couldn’t it have been Latin? He knew how to read Latin. He’d heard once that the words didn’t really matter, that a talented mage could easily work their spells without saying a word, but they were supposed to help guide you. If you connected them properly, however the heck they did that, even a shopping list could serve as a spell. So why did they have to go to such lengths to make it impossible to read?

“Hold on, let me try. Maybe there’s some other way to do it.” Goshiki took the book from him and frowned at the words, lips pursed a little as if contemplating if he wanted to throw it into the fountain. “It says right here that as long as you’re reading effortlessly it should work. I don’t think that means that it actually has to be right?”

“Oh, so I just have to  _pretend_  to know what I’m doing?” He could do that. In fact, he was a master at that.

He took the book back, cleared his throat once more – he didn’t really have to, but it helped get him into the right feeling – and started over from the top.

The words he was saying were definitely not what was written in that book save for a few short ones, but heck if he wasn’t making them sound convincing. It wasn’t that long of a text, only half a page, and when he reached the end he felt like he could do anything – freeze over that fountain, ride a broom, talk to animals—

But when he looked at the fountain, it was still untouched, doing its thing.

“Aw man …” Goshiki must have been wrong, then. Honestly, he couldn’t say that he was surprised, but it had felt so good …

“That’s gotta mean the spell is garbage,” Goshiki said and when Shouyou looked at him, he had the same expression on his face as the last time they played a match against each other, full of stubbornness and determination. “I totally believed you when I heard you say it. There’s no way it’s not the spell’s fault.”

“Are you sure? I probably just messed it up—”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t!” He held out his hand for Shouyou to give him the book once more – it really was wandering between them today – and started to recite something that sounded even less like the source material than whatever Shouyou had said.

Halfway through he turned back around to look at the fountain instead—

_Oh._

“Uh, Goshiki?”

He stopped in the middle of what he thought was a word. “What? Did something … Oh. Oooh.”

The fountain was still full of water, not ice, but it wasn’t what it had been before. Its colour had turned into a vibrant orange that sparkled all over, even in the places the light didn’t hit, and Shouyou swore he could hear a light twinkle when he listened intently.

It was beautiful.

But …

“That. Wasn’t what the spell was supposed to do,” Goshiki stated, gaping.

He was amazing. Goshiki was amazing. Shouyou had always known that, but whenever he saw him do something like this, he just kept thinking the same thing.

 

* * *

 

Tsutomu had a problem, and for once in his recent life it didn’t have much to do with Hinata.

When he’d revived that leaf at the park, he’d been kind of surprised but had written it off as just his fae blood doing weird stuff. He was supposed to have a connection to nature or something like that.

But the fountain? He had no idea what had happened there.

The only thing he’d wanted to do was show Hinata that the spell had been to blame for him not being able to work the magic – he hadn’t been expecting something like _that_.

“You look constipated,” Kawanishi said and sat down across from him at his table in the cafeteria, putting his tray down in front of him.

“Do you know anything about magic?” Tsutomu blurted out without thinking.

His senpai looked at him for a while, then cocked his head, contemplating. “I know that when you put bad luck potion in Kenjirou’s coffee he gets really mad at you. Does that count?”

“I think store-bought won’t cut it,” he sighed.

“Why are you asking though? Did something happen?”

“You … Could say so.” Even though he still wasn’t sure what exactly he should say, considering he had no clue what was going on. The leaf had been the first thing – he thought, at least – so when he started from there … “I’ve been practicing with Hinata, right? So recently he tried to burn a leaf and it didn’t work so I tried it too, but when I thought of him it just turned all green and healthy again. And yesterday he wanted to freeze over a fountain, it didn’t work either, and I was kind of mad at the spell book and wanted to prove that it was the book’s fault, and then … I didn’t even feel anything happening, the water just turned orange and started sparkling. What spell is that even supposed to be?”

“So it happens when you’re with Hinata?” Kawanishi mused, and Tsutomu couldn’t tell if he was intrigued or just bored.

But he was the only person willing to listen to him right now, so he’d take it. “Yeah, only then. I’d never even really worked magic before we started … But when he’s with me, it’s like I do it without even trying.”

“Sounds to me like you have a crush,” came the answer without hesitation.

“I know that,” Tsutomu replied, but couldn’t help the heat rising to his cheeks. He hadn’t admitted it out loud to anyone, even though he knew what it was at this point – actually saying it made it feel a bit more real … And a bit more hopeless.

“Huh,” Kawanishi said, eyebrows raised. “I took you for the oblivious type. But if you know, then it’s pretty obvious it’s got something to do with it. Maybe it’s your heart rate? I don’t know how magic works, but …”

“Maybe, yes …”

“If that’s the case, ask him out.”

In that moment, Tsutomu was incredibly glad he hadn’t touched his food yet, because if he had been eating right now, he would have choked and probably died.

“I-I-I can’t— I can’t just—”

“Why not?” Kawanishi, though, was now munching away as if this was no big deal at all to him. With his mouth full he continued, “That’s what people usually do when they like someone.”

“But there’s no way he likes me back!” he almost yelled, flinching when he noticed people turning to look at him.

“Who likes you back?” a familiar voice asked and he whirled around to see Shirabu looking down at him with a juice box in his hand and an expression that seemed already tired of him.

“Hinata,” Kawanishi said nonchalantly before Tsutomu could defend himself in any way.

“Karasuno’s tiny number 10?”

“Putting a whole new definition to ‘sleeping with the enemy’.”

“Could you please _stop_ ,” Tsutomu squeaked, feeling the intense urge to disappear into a hole.

Shirabu sighed. “I really don’t care about who you want to date or whatever, but if this is what’s been ruining your performance during practice, you’re off the team. If it’d help, go ask him out. Halloween’s soon, that’s a good excuse. You’re the ace, start acting like it.” And with that he walked away as if he’d never been there.

Tsutomu stared at him leaving, really confused … But strangely confident. Shirabu was right. He was the ace of Shiratorizawa, and a pretty awesome one at that, Hinata surely thought so too. “He’s right! I’m gonna ask him out!”

Kawanishi muttered something he didn’t quite hear, but it might have been “is this Kenjirou’s idea of helping someone out?”

It didn’t really matter. What did he have to fear?

 

* * *

 

“Stop staring at your phone and start actually participating,” Tsukishima said, but Shouyou couldn’t find it in himself to pay much attention. After all, he’d been thinking for two whole days now about what to reply to Goshiki, and he still hadn’t found a good answer.

They were sitting at Sakanoshita’s and talking about strategies for the Spring Tournament prelims next month, or were supposed to be, anyway. Shouyou didn’t really know how far they’d come up to this point. He just kept rereading the same text.

_wanna go out to eat something on halloween? the family restaurant nearby got some cool decorations for the season_

“What’s so important on that anyway?” Ennoshita asked, raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t complained at all about Shouyou not paying attention, which maybe was a bigger insult than if he’d had, but he didn’t really care about that right now.

Yamaguchi next to Shouyou had seemed like he’d been wanting to say something for a while, but hadn’t uttered a single word yet.

It was only the four of them today – everyone else had cancelled. Nothing could come from that anyway, he thought.

Tsukishima _tsk_ ed and reached for Shouyou’s phone across the table, but before he could even touch it, Yamaguchi blurted out, “Hinata got asked out on a date!”

“It’s not a date!” Shouyou immediately shot back. He wasn’t sure why exactly that was his knee-jerk reaction, but it didn’t change much in the grand scheme of things.

Tsukishima snorted and Ennoshita stared at him, gaping. Yeah, that looked like exactly the reaction anyone would have expected from them.

“It is,” Yamaguchi said. “Going out to eat together, like, just the two of you? That’s a date.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ennoshita muttered, still staring. “Hinata got a date. Hinata got a date before me.”

“They probably sent the message to the wrong person.” Tsukishima wasn’t making any effort to hide his smug grin, as if he was being really savage now or something.

But Shouyou knew that he was wrong. It was _Goshiki_ , after all. “He didn’t, but it’s not a date. I mean, to a family restaurant?”

Yamaguchi shook his head with the maximum amount of confidence he could be having right now. Why did he even care? “Because it’s Halloween-themed and that’s cool. That totally sounds like something Goshiki would do.”

“Goshiki?” Ennoshita asked, though he didn’t sound all that surprised. “How do you know it’s Goshiki?”

“I can read everything from here— Anyway, the point is …” He stopped and sighed, and for the first time this evening Shouyou felt understood. “We were gonna have a Halloween party in the gym this year and you can’t go to both events.”

“Exactly!” This was why Yamaguchi was his friend. Yamaguchi knew his struggles. “Date or not, I wanna go. I like hanging out with him.”

Tsukishima turned his head and quietly said, “Ouch, that’s heartless. I almost feel proud.”

“But,” Shouyou continued without sparing him a second glance, “I also wanna go to the party. We’ve been planning this for so long! We got the zombie costume for Kageyama and all …”

“Still surprised he actually agreed to that,” Ennoshita stated. “But can’t you just reschedule with Goshiki then?”

“That’s in three days though …” And it was in the middle of the week, too. He was pretty sure the decorations at the family restaurant he meant were only up until the actual day of Halloween, so going after that would defeat the purpose. He could ask, but asking to reschedule if it didn’t work out was the same as rejecting him, right?

“Whatever you do, don’t fuck it up. I want to see everyone’s faces when you get a boyfriend.” There was the edge to Tsukishima’s voice that was becoming really familiar, the one that indicated he was absolutely serious, which was sometimes scarier than when he wasn’t.

“Invite Goshiki to our party instead,” Yamaguchi proposed.

It sounded like a good idea for a millisecond, only to get immediately shut down by Ennoshita and Tsukishima’s simultaneous “No.”

“Why not? It’d solve all my problems!”

“No Shiratorizawa at the Karasuno Halloween party,” Ennoshita declared in the tone that meant he must not be argued with.

Shouyou tried anyway. “Can’t you make an exception for me, Ennoshita-san?”

“Captain’s. Orders.”

“Geez, fine …” So his problem remained the same.

Goshiki asked him later, so it was probably the right thing to decline, but … He really didn’t want to. He wanted to see those Halloween decorations and he wanted to talk to Goshiki about something that wasn’t magic and—

If this was actually a date …

He’d never thought about him that way before. Goshiki was his friend and his partner in practicing magic, nothing else. And still … Going on a date with him, an actual real-life I-kinda-wanna-be-your-boyfriend kind of date …

Why was his heart suddenly beating so fast?

If Goshiki really did think of this as a date, he wouldn’t want to reject him, he decided.

“Maybe …” There was no solution to it, he knew that. Unless they went out to eat super early so he could be there for the party at Karasuno, and that would totally kill the mood. “Maybe … Maybe …”

He squeezed his eyes shut as if that could help him focus, but he didn’t come up with anything at all.

Everyone would be sad if he didn’t come to the party … But he didn’t want to hurt Goshiki either …

“Take lots of photos,” he ended up saying, still not opening his eyes. “Maybe I can make it depending on how long we take, but …”

“You don’t want to reject him,” Yamaguchi finished for him and Shouyou nodded. “Alright, I’ll film everything.”

“Didn’t I say we should do that anyway?” Ennoshita added and when Shouyou finally dared to open his eyes, he was smiling at him. “But you have to tell us what happened at your date too.”

“Obviously!” Shouyou exclaimed.

“We don’t want to hear any details unless it went terribly,” Tsukishima deadpanned at the same time.

He ignored him and looked at his phone again, this time with an answer in mind.

_sure!!_

 

* * *

 

He might be dying.

Whether that was because of the sudden drop in temperature – it was 2° at most and he was not mentally prepared for that at the end of October – or because he was outside of the family restaurant waiting for Hinata for their _date_ , Tsutomu hadn’t decided yet. Probably both.

He was fifteen minutes early, which he wouldn’t usually have been but this was a matter of life and death. Maybe literally, depending on what his magic would keep doing if he didn’t get this Hinata thing sorted out. So far it had only been pretty stuff, but what if things started exploding? He didn’t have the time to go to prison, Spring Tournament prelims were coming up.

To be honest, he really wanted to go inside; he was shivering from the cold as well as his nerves and he did really want to see those decorations. One of the first years had said they’d made it look like a haunted mansion, and from what he could see through the windows and what he’d found out online, they’d done a really good job of it.

(Tsutomu, truth be told, didn’t really like scary stuff, but if it was just decorations, he could deal with it. Probably. It was something like morbid curiosity alongside the fact that he knew Hinata was a fan of horror movies, although he had said they also scared him. If they ever watched one together, Tsutomu would have to be the strong one he could hide behind … Without running out of the room screaming.)

Also … If Hinata didn’t show up soon, he might regret this and bolt. He didn’t even know what to do on a date. Did they just … Talk, like usual? But then this wouldn’t be any different, right?

Was Tsutomu supposed to pay for his food, because he was the one who invited him? But Hinata could eat a lot and he didn’t know if he could afford all of it. It wasn’t that expensive, but still …

His thought process got cut short the instant he saw Hinata emerge from a side street, spot him, and wave with a smile that made his heart skip a couple of beats.

Forget making it to the end of the date, he wasn’t even going to survive this.

“Hi!” Hinata said as soon as he was within speaking range. “Did you wait long?”

“N-not at all!” His voice cracked on the last syllable and now he was really wishing his fae blood gave him some … Regal attitude or whatever. Weren’t fae supposed to be all ethereal and cold? Or was he confusing them with elves? And _why didn’t he know_?!

At least the cold wasn’t a problem anymore with how his entire face felt like it was burning.

Hinata cocked his head and frowned at him, which was way too adorable for Tsutomu to handle, so he looked away quickly, even if that probably didn’t help his case. “You sure?”

“Yeah … Totally.” There was a bike chained to a nearby pole. It was pretty small. Too small for most people. Interesting.

“Let’s go inside then, it’s, like, freezing out here.” Hinata said that, but he was wearing a really thick jacket – Tsutomu wouldn’t have taken him for the type who got cold easily, but maybe that was just because he usually moved around so much.

Going inside sounded like a half decent plan, though. “Yeah, let’s.”

It was the precise moment when he stepped through the door that Tsutomu realised he’d made a mistake.

A family restaurant in a pretty good spot that was known for the Halloween decorations … On the very day of Halloween … Would be very, very crowded.

Normally he would have paid more attention to the cobwebs all over the ceiling, the skeletons dangling from the coat hangers, the spooky music playing in the background, or any of the many other details that really did make this a really cool place to be at, but all he could think about was that he could tell there were no free spots at a single glance.

“Woah, look!” Hinata said and ran on in, oblivious to Tsutomu’s dilemma. “Goshiki! Goshiki, there’s a grave here in the corner! And—”

God damn it, he was adorable pointing out everything, never bothering to lower his voice – it was pretty noisy in here anyway, so it didn’t really matter, he supposed – but that just made it all the sadder that they definitely wouldn’t find a place. He hadn’t thought far enough to reserve a table. In fact, he was pretty sure you _couldn’t_ reserve a table here.

Stupid— He was so _stupid_!

“What the hell?!”

Someone’s voice followed by the crash of a falling plate resonated through the room loud enough for everyone to turn their heads, and when Tsutomu did, he suddenly got the feeling that he now had much bigger problems than not finding a place to sit.

From the table closest to him, to the horror of the poor woman sitting there, a small tree was growing in record speed.

It was about the size of your ordinary bonsai, though he couldn’t tell what type of tree it was supposed to be, as he didn’t know half a damn about the local flora – what he could tell was that this was somehow his fault.

Even though he wasn’t feeling any buzz of magic running through his body, he just _knew_.

But hell if he’d say that out loud.

“Oh my god!” Hinata exclaimed and hurried toward the table with wide eyes and an open mouth, staring as if he’d just seen the most amazing thing ever. Which, honestly, he probably had. Making leaves grow back or recolouring water? Sure, fine. Having a bonsai grow out of a table? That stuff didn’t just _happen_.

(Although it had. It literally had.)

Could anyone tell? If there were any people around who were particularly sensitive to magic, they could probably feel it was Tsutomu’s, and then he’d get punished by the staff and probably arrested and that was no way to end a date.

So instead he said, probably too quickly to not seem suspicious, “Uh, this place doesn’t really seem safe, let’s go look for something else.”

Hinata looked up at him with an expression that seemed half understanding and half disappointed, but he ended up nodding and following Tsutomu leaving the restaurant in a walking speed that barely didn’t qualify as a run.

Ushijima had always said that you needed to own up to your mistakes … But Ushijima wasn’t here and Tsutomu really, really just needed to get far away right now.

Hinata was catching up with him by running and as soon as he’d determined they’d rounded enough corners without anyone following them, Tsutomu slowed down to a more reasonable pace until he eventually stopped walking altogether.

This. Was not what it should have been like. At all.

He whirled around and inhaled.

“I’m so sorry,” he almost shouted.

“That was so cool!” Hinata absolutely shouted at the exact same time.

Tsutomu stared at him, trying to find some sort of dishonesty in his face, but all he had was a beaming grin and eyes that he swore were sparkling staring up at him like he’d just hung up the stars. “You did that, right? I could totally tell! You have to teach me!”

Oh.

_Right._

This was Hinata Shouyou.

He cleared his throat and stood up a little straighter, forcing a grin he hoped looked smug. “That … That was nothing. Nothing at all! I could do that in my sleep.”

“Yeah, probably! You’re just amazing like that.” Suddenly, though, Hinata’s smile fell and with it, Tsutomu swore the world got a little bit darker. “You just do it so naturally. I guess it makes sense, you’re part fae and I’m just human. I’ll probably never be able to use magic like you do.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hinata flinched and looked back up at him with wide eyes. “Huh?”

“I mean … You’re, like …” He was so much. Maybe not the best mage ever, but … Tsutomu refused to believe he was completely talentless. He couldn’t be. Not someone like Hinata. “Whenever you’re there it’s like standing right in the sun! The only reason I can do all these things is because you’re there. Because when you’re there, everything is so easy – I never even bothered with magic before, but then we’ve been practicing together and every time I managed something cool it was because of you! That’s even more amazing!”

It was only when he was finished talking that he realised just how much he meant those words. He knew Hinata was something special, but he didn’t have a way of saying _how_ , not until he’d just blurted it out like that and suddenly everything was out in the open.

Kawanishi had said that his magic worked the way it did because he had a crush on Hinata, and that was definitely true, but … He wanted to think that wasn’t all there was to it. Just being in love didn’t give you superpowers.

He’d read, recently, that the reason some wizards used wands was that it helped amplify their magic. Maybe Hinata was just a walking wand. An amplifier. Or something like that – heck, he didn’t even know if that was possible, but he refused to believe anything else.

Hinata looked like he wanted to say something, opening and closing his mouth but with no words coming out, and he was definitely blushing as much as Tsutomu felt like he himself was, and for a moment they just stood there in a small little side street staring at each other.

And then, after what felt like an eternity, Hinata said, “Let’s go to a café or something, and then we’re getting costumes and going to the Karasuno Halloween party.”

The … What? What was with that shift in topic? Had he said something wrong?

“Uh … Why?”

“Because,” he said and finally smiled at him again, “they’re not gonna let us in if I bring someone from Shiratorizawa, so we have to hide our identity. And the café thing … Since the family restaurant didn’t work out … We’ve still gotta go on our date. We just can’t take too long or we’ll miss everything, so we’re not eating, just drinking a hot chocolate or something like that.”

Now it was Tsutomu’s turn once more to stand there completely dumbfounded with no idea what was happening, except that Hinata wasn’t turning him down and was, in fact, acknowledging that this was a thing he actually wanted to do.

No, seriously, what was happening?

“This … Is a date, right? Yamaguchi said it’s a date.” He gasped and threw up his hands, waving them around aimlessly and looking at everything but Tsutomu. “B-but if it’s not and he was wrong I don’t mind just hanging out! I-I mean. Yeah!”

“It is!” he quickly replied, perhaps a bit _too_ quickly. If he’d ever wanted to hide how terribly nervous he was, he’d ruined it already.

Even so … That wasn’t a bad thing, maybe.

“Let’s go then! Kinoshita-san said there’s this really nice little café that shouldn’t be too far away from here, let’s go there.” And with that, Hinata turned to the direction he was hoping it was in, betraying no more signs of nervousness at all. Dang, he adapted to these situations way too quickly, it made Tsutomu feel like an idiot.

But when he saw his smile, he thought that it wasn’t all that much of an issue.

**Author's Note:**

> they were supposed to go a bit further than this but this felt like the most natural place to end it - rest assured they absolutely end up as boyfriends a few weeks later.
> 
> either way, Happy Halloween! have a good one, whether you celebrate it or not!
> 
> Tumblr: https://akaashi-tooru.tumblr.com/ please yell with me about rarepairs


End file.
